Latest / Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃 / Radio 831: Monster Romance 101, Rosie Danan on Vampires in Villain Edit, and SeaWorld Goes Dark Romance

Transcript

Radio 831: Monster Romance 101, Rosie Danan on Vampires in Villain Edit, and SeaWorld Goes Dark Romance · Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the Radio 831 podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: We're your hosts, Sanjana Bhaskar and Tyler McCall. And we're
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: so excited to talk everything romance from the novels and
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: the tropes to the book to screen adaptations. And of course,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: the drama of it all, you know, unpacking what the
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: genre says about who we are and how we love.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It is the middle of October. It is spooky season,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: as the people say. And the reason for the season,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I feel, when it comes to romance this time of
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: year is monster romance, which I know is a subject
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that you are very, very passionate about.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I am indeed.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: And a subject that I know next to nothing about.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I have never read a monster romance. I am aware
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: of it as a concept. It bubbles up into my
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: universe every now and then. But it is not something
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I've dabbled in. And I know that we have planned
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: a very exciting couple episodes revolving around topics in monster romance.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: But I want to kick it off by giving you
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to sell me on monster romance.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: You have the floor.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And this is something that you have dabbled in with
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: me via text message and TikTok DM.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: And I have.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Played coy about it, but I'm playing coy no longer.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I have my wallet on the table. I am prepared
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: to buy. I am prepared to purchase today. Sanj, do
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you want to sell me on Monster Romance today?
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I do indeed. I want to start by asking, what
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: do you define as a monster? And this is a
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: really hard question, actually. It may not seem like it,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: but it really is.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Like a fictional creature, like a non-human fictional creature.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Does that feel right?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Do you have examples of what they might be? Vampires.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I want to say werewolves, but I'm worried our werewolves
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and our omegas, you know what, that's a different, we're
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: going to have to get into that another day. But
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: like werewolves, Frankenstein monster, ghosts, but is ghost paranormal? Like
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: what's the overlap between paranormal and monster?
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Here's the thing, right? Monstersness is a slippery, uncertain, ambiguous
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: quality by nature. It's not just a fixture of like,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: No one has quite figured it out yet. That is
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: what it is. It is slippery. It is hard to define.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: It is ambiguous in nature because monsters themselves are cultural products,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: like exports of certain human anxieties about how we are
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: in the world. And they can be the way that
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: we think about monsters in the real world, right? Like
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: predators and violent people and people we find to be
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: threatening and scary. And they can also be these like
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: fictional beasties. In the context of monster romance, we're often
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: looking at fictional beasties. But those beasts themselves symbolize and
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: have long symbolized our very human anxieties about other things, right?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Like aliens, for example, are a product of a cultural
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: fear of the outsider invading our home, occupying our bodies,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: taking up our space. Like it captures all of these
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: like xenophobic anxieties our culture has about the invading immigrant
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: other or orcs and minotaurs as symbols of this like
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: racialized other or we can keep going on with different
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: species and I don't think this is like a one-to-one
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: of like this symbolizes X. This is just a series
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: of convenient examples but I think part of the reason
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: why it's so challenging to define what a monster is
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: is because they resist tidy description and That's partially why
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I think that they are worth writing about and reading
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: about in the context of romance, because I find them
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: to be such rich sites of cultural excavation. And we've
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: talked a lot about romance as a cultural product. When
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: you are telling a story about a monster, you are
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: telling a story about a human, about a monster, about
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: a world, about a culture. And so I find that
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: the monster romance that I've read has become so.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Intellectually generative for me in a way that I wasn't
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: expecting when I first started. I mean, maybe I should
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: have expected it. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is one of
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: my favorite books of all time. Wuthering Heights is like
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: one of the books that formed me as a person.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: When Robert Eggers wrote Nosferatu, which is one of my
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: favorite movies of all time, he talked a lot about
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: how he read Wuthering Heights in preparation for the movie
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: because Wuthering Heights is the original demon lover romance which
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: yeah that is a pretty astute observation of how Heathcliff
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: works in that both as a racialized other and as
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: a person I think on the sort of surface level
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: monsters are interesting because they are such rich capacious symbols
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and when you read a monster story it is hard
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: not to sit with the messaging of it for a
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: long time But I wanted to start there by being like,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: we can't define what monsters are because we both make
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: them and we feel that they come from outside of us.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: And to get a little bit more specific about defining terms,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: when I talk about monster romance, I am often talking
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: about creatures that have uncertain bodily properties. So I don't
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: generally speaking include witches, werewolves, and vampires within the category
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: of monster romance. I'm more likely... This is more of
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: a personal definition than like an academic one, because the
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: body of the werewolf, the vampire and the witch is
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: so familiar and humanoid. But I think a huge part
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: of the appeal of the monster, especially in monster romance,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: which is interested in exploring how the body moves, is
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: the uncertainty of it. The uncertainty of the physical form,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: the malleability of the physical form. I'm more likely to
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: say Krakens and orcs and what else? What other?
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: I didn't even know Krakens was an option.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, Krakens are totally an option.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I forgot about Krakens.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: There's a Katie Robert Kraken romance.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: I totally forgot that was an option.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: There's something about the strangeness that is like the vehicle
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: for interest. You watched the animated Beauty and the Beast
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: as a child? I'm guessing. Oh, yeah.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that thing got worn out.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Were you among the scores of women who were like, man,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: he looked better as a beast than he did as
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: a human prince? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, dog. For me, the
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: appeal is, one, as Gemini, I love a slippery, uncertain,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: ambiguous creature. Two, I think that oftentimes when women read monsters,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: they see in them a capacity for freakishness that we
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: crave in ourselves. Not to be self-insert about it, but
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I think that's often the case. And I also think
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: that it's really interesting to think about how our own
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: ideas of desire and pleasure can be divorced from traditional
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: humanoid forms that Our capacity for desire far extends beyond
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: such like simple rules of like penis is hot. Like
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: there's the bodily strangeness is like a huge feature of
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: what I think makes monstrousness so interesting to me. Yeah.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Damn. See, I wasn't prepared for all that.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Look, one thing about me, I'm going to get a
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: little theoretical with it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: And I love that about you.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Like my instinct as someone who lives in the world
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is like, well, I think about people as being monstrous
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: as well. And like I sort of immediately kind of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: drew a connection to dark romances where you have people
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: who are fully human who are doing terrible, horrible things
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to each other in some way. And that feels monstrous.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I know like it's not quite the same, but they're
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: close enough. They're like touching enough for me that it's
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: like sort of a different scenario where it's interesting that
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: in actual monster romances, you have these very cozy, very safe,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: feeling settings for these sort of extreme versions of bodies.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And then you have normal human bodies in these sort
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: of extreme dangerous situations. And it's not to say that
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: like monster romance can't be without a certain flavor of fear.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I'm also even thinking about books like Sing Me to
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Sleep by R.M. Virtues, which is a sleep paralysis demon
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: and the woman who's dreaming of him. Incredible premise. Or
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: there's also a similar setup between a succubus and a
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: human woman in Demon Lover by Heather Gare. Also, I
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: think you would be surprised by how the sweetness and
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: tenderness of the characters being written about can at times
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: offset the like uncanny strangeness of the body. Yeah. It's interesting.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Or even like, turn that uncanny strangeness of the body
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: into a desirable property. I'm thinking about Found by the
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Lake Monster by Lillian Lark, in which there is fully
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: an aviposition scene for the uninitiated. It's egg implantation. And
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: I'm actually not going to say anything more than that.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: You don't need to know more than that.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Because I think you should just read it. It's a
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: great book. It's really sweet. It's very, it's really lovely.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: I would highly recommend it. And also, it's a little
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: strange and weird and freaky.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm really excited to get into all this over
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the next couple of episodes.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: And actually, we're going to start by getting into it
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: with the really lovely Rosie Dannon. We're not talking strictly
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: speaking about monsters. We're talking about vampires. But it is
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: October and it is vampire season. It would be irresponsible,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: dare I say, for us not to be discussing the
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: cultural impact of vampires in this time. Rosie Dannen is
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: the author of several books that you've probably read, like
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: The Roommate, Do Your Worst, Fan Service, All Wrapped Up
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: in You. My favorite is The Intimacy Experiment and The
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Villain Edit, which I thoroughly adored. It is a romance
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: novel about a vampire crown prince in exile in a
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: retirement community in California who has been tasked with controlling
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: his thirst and his love story with the granddaughter of
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: the woman whose house he's subletting from, who is an
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: ex-reality TV producer who sees him and thinks, hmm, he'd
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: be a perfect candidate for my Bachelor-esque TV show and
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: maybe will get me back in the good graces of
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: my boss. So it's a really fun setup. And I
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: also just like really love Rosie's writing. So I'm excited
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: to talk to her about vampires in our world. culture
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: and outside of them. Rosie, welcome to the pod. I'm
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: so excited to be talking to you about vampires today.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Vampires and monsters, but vampires specifically because of your upcoming book,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Villain Edit, which is like, first of all, such a
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: spectacular premise. Okay, can I just start by doing a
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: little bit of light fangirling? I think one of the
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: things I love best about your work is your capacity
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: for writing about kind of a crazy premise with like
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: so much tenderness and specific intimacy. And when I saw
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: the pitch for Villain Edit where I was like, okay,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: reality TV, wild, check. Vampire Crown Prince, wild, check. The
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: set up for it feels like it should be something
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: so outrageous. And it's not that you don't make use
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: of those elements, but ultimately you tell such a loving
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: story about a vampire crown prince and an ex-reality TV producer.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: And I just, I got to start with, how did
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: you do that?
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: I love this question because I think that you really
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: have summarized me as a writer. Like, I think those
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: are sort of the hallmarks that I think of when
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: I I'm trying to put together a project. And when
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: I walk away from a project and see what I'm
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: left with, it's like, I like a wild premise. Like,
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: I like for it to feel kind of like a
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: bad idea. Like, oh, maybe nobody should do that. Like,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: that's the one we're going to take. But then I
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: do think, ultimately, that execution ends up being softer than
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: even I imagined. Like, every time I think I've reached
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: the depth of, like, okay, well, this one can't be, like,
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: more tender. We can't have, like, new depths of, like,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: feelings to plumb. I think we get there. Like, I
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: think villain edit, which I thought was going to be
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: a lot more, like, sarcastic in tone when I originally
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: pitched it and darker, ends up being... very full-hearted. And
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: I think the reason it happens is I think that
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: my characters end up representing for one another the thing
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: that the other character fears most. So each love interest
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: is sort of the personification of the main character's worst
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: fears come to life. And I think that contributes to
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: the plot in the sense that it feels very like
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: loud and aggressive and makes the main character very uncomfortable.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: So for villain edit, for example, Gabriel is a crown prince.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: He is prophesied to lose control. His prophecy is that
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: his thirst will be his undoing, which I felt like
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: was like properly ceremonial and big. So the thing that
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: he fears is one, humans, because they thirst for human blood.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: And then two, this idea that he could meet a
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: human that would make him lose sight of all the
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: responsibilities and all the training that he's had his whole
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: life to assume the vampire throne. And then for Harper,
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: who's our reality TV producer, her fear, and it's a
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: little bit more recently seeded, is that she is going
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: to lose everything because she gets too close to someone.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: And I think her fear there is, She has internalized
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: this idea that she is so manipulative that she can
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: actually turn people so bad that they become true villains.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: And again, I think that contributes to a lot of
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: plot scaffolding, that they have to confront those things and
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: they have to navigate getting close to someone that represents
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: both what they want and what they fear. But then
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: I think ultimately the output is very soft because... the
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: real work of confronting your fears is very like quiet
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: and intimate and vulnerable more than anything. I think so
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: much of my work is being interested in vulnerability. And
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: I think that's where a lot of the softness comes from.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: So even when I tried to make it dark, that
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: ends up being the underbelly and that ends up being
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: the execution.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I guess I'm curious why pick vampires? What is it
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: about their lore specifically that interests you? And like, are
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: you like a paranormal romance reader outside of this?
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: I am a paranormal romance reader. And I think it's
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: very paranormal stories were very foundational for me. Like when
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: I think about like being young and developing my media tastes.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: there were a lot of, like, paranormal stories. And I
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: don't know if that's just because that was, like, what
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: was popular, but I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I was watching Charmed. I was watching Lena. Like, I
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: was in, like, The Mummy 1999.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: The good stuff.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: So when I, as a writer, think back to, like,
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: some of my core influences, because I think our childhood tastes, like,
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: end up coming in our work no matter what. Those,
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: I'll have, like, a touch of magic, a lot of them.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: But I think particularly... I'm attracted to the tension between
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: supernatural elements and then very human.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: Problems, which I think a lot of those works were.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: More of the grounded paranormal versus total high fantasy or something,
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: which feels more escapist in some ways. I'm interested in
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: the ways that supernatural, either monsters or powers, however it
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: influences the world, forces us to confront our humanity more.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: In terms of like picking vampires, honestly, not something I
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: necessarily set out to do. My last book, Fan Service, had.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: A werewolf hero.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: And that was sort of like a one-off idea. Like
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: it was not this super conscious decision of like, I'm
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: going to write monster romance now. I just had the
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: premise for that of like an actor who used to
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: play a werewolf on TV and starts becoming one years
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: after the show went off air and no one believes him.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: And I thought that was so funny that I just like,
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: was like, please let me write this. And it's after
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: that book is done that I'm, you know, I'm talking
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: to my editor about like, what's, what's my next project.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: And it was from that perspective, I think sort of
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: a foregone conclusion that I would write more monsters and
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: that like, okay, well we did a werewolf. So now
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: we'll do a vampire. And I originally was like, I
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: don't think I have anything new to say about vampires.
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: And while I was on maternity leave, I had like
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: sold the book, but I hadn't really started working on
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: it yet. I was watching a lot of reality TV
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: and I was like, villain edit, like, oh damn, like
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: that's so good. Somebody should make a paranormal called villain edit.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: And then I was like, wait, like, it could be me. Yeah.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: And that's where like the whole reality TV and like
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: making the first supernatural sort of Bachelor, if you will,
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: came from. And that I fell in love with. Like,
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: that was like the unlocking for me of like... oh,
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: there is something really interesting about the idea of a
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: vampire that's like conscious of his image and like sort
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: of knowingly marketing himself to be appealing. Like I got
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: really into the meta of that.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: I think it's also that, yeah, you're telling a really
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: human story. And also I got to ask you about
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: the blood play scene, which is so personally important to
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: me personally for totally academic and intellectual reasons and no
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: other ones. Gabriel's in a knitting circle and he lives
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: in a retirement community and he's the sweetest ever. And
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: also he thirsts for blood and it's really hot. So, like,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: you're making use of monstrosity in really useful ways.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: I want the hallmarks of the genre that I love.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: I need to feel like the promise of the premise
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: is being paid off, right? So, like, there needs to
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: be a bite. There needs to be something sexy with
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: blood happening. Like, why else are we doing this? It
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: was a fun challenge, I personally found, because regardless of
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: whether it's a supernatural love interest or not, anytime you're
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: writing a sex scene, you're like, how do I write
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: this so that it's hot and not, like, gross? But
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: I do think it helps that the craving for blood
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: is a very physical sensation, right? So it's like, we've
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: got the scent situation happening, we've got visual markers, so, like,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: Gabriel's obsessed with cataloging Harper's blushes. And we've got like
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: sound you can hear like heartbeat escalation. So I think
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: all those things sort of, I mean, they do, they
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: mirror desire signals. And then I think at the end
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: of the day, what will we allow this man to
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: get away with because he is a vampire? Because I
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: think the blood boy scene in particular, if that's a
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: human character... and you walk in and see what's happening,
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: I think you're, like, calling the cops. Like, I don't
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: think you're getting away with it, right? But because he's
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: a vampire, we allow for a little grayness in our judgment, right?
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: Between what is sexy and what is potentially disturbing. Or
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: maybe it's disturbing because it's hot. Or hot because it's
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: disturbing a little.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, can I just say, thrilled that you made
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: use of menstruation as a real feature of the text
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: because it's been like Chekhov's period in every vampire romance
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: I've read in a long time where I'm like, everyone's
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: talking about a period, but no one's doing anything about it.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Can we get on that?
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: I had to. I was like, There's no way we
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: can't get into it. I don't know. They had to
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: at least talk about it, right?
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Honestly, it's another case of like, you can't be squeamish.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: We're here to have a good time.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: It's like you signed up for this a little bit.
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: If you're doing something interesting, it's probably not going to
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: be for everyone. It's sort of like a piece that
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: I've had to make with myself as a writer.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: I've seen enough memes post-Twilight of people being like, Edward
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: yanked Bella's tampon out with his teeth to be like, well,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: show it then. You know, which it doesn't get there specifically,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: but I wouldn't mind. You know, I think we've got
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: to be open to being a little bit like, huh,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: question mark. I'm interested.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: And it feels very like patriarchal that even in romance,
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: which we think of as being progressive a lot of
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: the time, like periods are sometimes like off limits or
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: like pause your sexuality or like that part of your
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: connection with your partner. And it felt like vampire is
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: a great time to be like, oh, you're on a period? Like,
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: I'm double interested.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be so helpful. So good. It's so good.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: I just will never get tired of reading about a vampire.
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: And there's like so many different types of monsters. And
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: I do think there's like kind of like a popularity hierarchy, right?
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: With like vampires and the clear leaders. And then you've
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: got werewolves. And then you've got what? Like witches get
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: like maybe a little bit in there. But I think
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: there's like a lot of room for these like lesser known,
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: like we're seeing more krakens and mermen. And also I
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: think like vampires, a pro and a con is that
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: it's been done so much that there's a lot of
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: like more ironed out lore that you either like choose
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: to opt into or not. Whereas I think about a
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: merman and I'm like, I still don't actually understand the
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: mechanics of there at all. It's open-ended for me.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. I love that. What monster would
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: you write next?
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: Okay, so I am writing another monster currently. I will say,
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: this is a pretty big spoiler, but I will say
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: that our ideas about gender and how they intersect with
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: monsters I think is something worth digging into.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: I love that Thank you for coming on, Rosie. This
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: was so lovely. I'm so excited for people to get
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Villanetta in their hands. Gabriel is, oh my God, I
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: want to pinch his cheeks and also more nefarious things,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: but mostly I find him to be the sweetest and
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: I love him. And I so appreciate you coming on
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: and sharing your time and your brain with us. Yes.
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Tyler, I had such a lovely time with Rosie. She
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: is truly so special, so wonderful. I had such a
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: fangirl moment. Speaking of fangirls, I have some interesting stuff
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: to send you today. I'm scared. And I would love
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: to solicit a live reaction from you. If you could
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: check your phone and watch the two TikToks that I've
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: sent you.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Okay. What have you slid across my desk today?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: I've slid something really interesting across your desk today.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Of the SeaWorld Dark Romance Book Talk Girly Scare Zone,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: as it is called. I... Okay.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: I'm very flustered.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: In a this-is-working-for-you way?
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: This better not awaken anything in me. Yeah, listen, I
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: am in some ways very easy to impress, I guess.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Tyler, this is not the.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Reaction I was expecting from.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: You at all.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, so actually, now that you mention it, I have
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: a very serious question, which is why the fuck is
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: this at SeaWorld?
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: Correct.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: Why is this at SeaWorld?
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Let me explain really quick what this is. SeaWorld... yes,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: of Shamu fame, has opened a book talk girly dark
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: romance scare zone. I don't know if that's the exact,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: every person I've said this to has been like, I
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: know those words separately, but not together. And not together.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I understand. I was also stunned when I first saw it.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: It is an exhibit of scare actors who are carrying
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: out some dark romance-y kind of vibes. They've got like
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Phantom of the Opera masks on. They have spray painted
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: abs on. Those are not real human abs. They have
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: fluttering black shirts. They're doing the come hither beckon with
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: your fingers. It's a really dubious setup all around. And
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: it is intended to be like a scare zone that
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: draws in tourists. The connection to SeaWorld is tenuous, besides
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: the fact that it's taking place there.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: So we should we should talk about scare actor phenomenon
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: in general.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I am aware that scare actors are a thing because
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: every September the 1st, my TikTok algorithm starts trying to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: serve me scare actor content because it is. Listen, it's
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: not wrong that I fit the demographic.
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I am a millennial white lady who reads romance online.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: I have watched scare actor content. There is one at some,
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: I think it must.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Be like, I know which one you're talking about. I'm
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: unfortunately so locked into him. Yeah, I think so.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Fry boy is really hot. Fry boy really works for me.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: I don't, I don't understand it conceptually. I don't understand
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: what the point is.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: So fry boy, for those who don't know, I think
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: it's fry boy for those who don't know for like,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: like 45 days out of the year. This man is
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: employed to wander about a theme park with like knee
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: pads and like some kind of hand brace on that
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: have like a coating on them that when he runs
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: at a fast speed, he can drop to his knees
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: and he slides across the ground really fast. As I'm
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: explaining this, it sounds so profoundly unsexy. I actually don't
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: think I could have found– a less sexy way to
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: describe the action of what this is.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: And the other thing that happens to me, and.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Again, I fit the demographic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: is that Universal Studios has caught on to the dark
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: romance girlies and they have, you know, famously they have
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Halloween Horror Nights. This is a huge, this has been
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: a thing for many, many years.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: I grew up in Florida. I've been to Halloween Horror Nights.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I can't go anymore because it gives me heart palpitations
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: because I'm 40.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: But in my youth, it was fun.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: And the thing that they have caught on to is
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: having Death Eaters in the Harry Potter section makes certain
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: types of girlies go nuts.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: That's one that doesn't work for me because... No. Have
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: you not caught and served the Death Eater thirst content? No,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: not the Nazi.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I actually.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: They're the Nazi wizards.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: It's just.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Because it is adjacent to this. It's adjacent to scare actors. It's, like,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: men in masks with, like, flowing black cloaks.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Like, I actually think Universal had to hire.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Like, security for, like, the Death Eaters because women were
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: getting too thirsty for them. You could draw a direct thread,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: to me, between the rise in popularity of dark romance
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: on social media, specifically, and then Fry Boy, I feel like,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: started popping up, like.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: I think maybe two years ago, but I could be wrong.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: For me, anyway.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: He started popping up two Halloweens ago. I need to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: meet the girly pop at SeaWorld who saw Fry Boy
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and said, we could do this.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: SeaWorld! At SeaWorld.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be thirsty at SeaWorld. I don't
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: want to be at SeaWorld, period. I don't know how
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that business model is still going, to be honest. Love
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: and light to the fine folks at SeaWorld who will
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: never sponsor this podcast now. But, like, listen, I don't
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: need to go to SeaWorld to be thirsty.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Horror night is one thing or Halloween night is one thing. But, like,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: SeaWorld is like a family establishment.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: So I'm about to say a series of crazy things.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: I did a student film.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: On this show? Never.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: On this show.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I did a student film last year. And my co-star
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: in the student film was an older gentleman who spent
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: like a month every year in Florida working at a
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: haunted house. Because he's a scare actor. He's not a
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: scare actor in this way. Like not a thirst scare actor.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Just like the normal kind that like wear like Jason
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: masks and whatever.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: But, like, I do think this is a huge industry
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: for actors this time of year. So I should also
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: just say, like, much love and respect to actors getting
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: paid to do acting work. I love that for you guys. Also,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I've been reading some really great scare actor romances.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: Really?
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I try to keep up with, like, Halloween romances. Weirdly,
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: my appetite for them is mostly in the spring. But I...
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: That is really funny. I really... I think Chelsea Curdo
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: had a, like, dark scare actor romance. That I was
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: totally tickled by.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Oh, Holly June Smith has one, too.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: I think I've read that one as well. Really hot.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: They're fun. The, like, fry boy economy of romance is real, right? Unironically,
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: it is real. Vanessa Allen's Lights Out, that came from
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Masked Men on BookTok. There's a lot of awareness of
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Masked Men on BookTok. there are a lot of dark
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: romances that are like doing a sort of reciprocal thing
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: with this economy of like erotic horror content in real
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: life and vice versa. You know, they are like reciprocal
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: systems of wish fulfillment, which I mean, I find the
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: book stuff more successful than the in-person performances, but that's
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: just because I'm just Gen Z enough to experience profound cringe.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean? Like I'm just Gen
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Z enough to be like, I, I'm experiencing immediate ick.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: For me, it's more like I totally respect that this
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: is a thing for women, but I want to usher
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: them out of that space and be like, no, no,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: you deserve better than this. this we can do better
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: than this like we can we can find better like
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: do you know what I mean it's more that it's
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: more like.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: And these videos kind of worked for you Tyler.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah I could it was more it was let me
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: let me be clear it was more than I could
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: see how it would work for me Do you know
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: what I mean?
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: It was not an immediate, like, this works for me.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: It was more of like there were moments. It was
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: like concepts of a plan. Concepts of a plan.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Also, if you guys have ever been having thoughts about
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: scare actors, about Halloween romance, we'd love to hear them.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: And you can send them to us at 833-831-LOVE. We
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: do listen to those voicemails and we love to hear them.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: I think that's the show. That's the show.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: I don't think we can top any of what I
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: just said. That's the show.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Call us and leave us a voicemail with your thoughts
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: at 833-831-LOVE.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: That's 833-831-5683. If you fell hard for what you heard here,
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: get episode notes delivered.
• 30:41
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• 30:46
  Speaker 2: share your recommendations and topic ideas in the post comments.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Head to 831stories. com to keep up with 831's monthly read-in-one-sitting
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: romance novellas and sign up for a membership to The
• 30:58
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• 31:01
  Speaker 2: The Ones also get a 20% discount on everything on
• 31:03
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• 31:08
  Speaker 1: The Radio 831 Podcast is a production of iHeart Podcasts,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: hosted by Sanjana Bhaskar and Tyler McCall. The show is
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: produced by Liz Smith. And for iHeart, our supervising producer
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: is Emily Marinoff. Special thanks to the whole iHeart team
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and especially Allie Perry and Allison Cantor Graber. Our executive
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: producers are Claire Mazur and Erica Cerullo. Our music is
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Domino by James Ryan Carr and Love Is What You
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Do by Alibi.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: We'll be sharing the love here again next week.